The sound of the door opening behind her jerked her head around. A man walked into the room, flanked by two armed soldiers. Just above medium height and leanly built, he wore a pullover cashmere sweater and a black leather jacket that had the effect of making him look European rather than American. But then, that was one of the things they taught you in spy school-how to blend in with the natives.
He drew up just inside the doorway, his expression inscrutable as he gazed first at the woman, then at Andrei. “Jesus Christ,” said Jax, smoothing the cuffs of his jacket as the soldiers stepped back. “What the hell is going on here, Andrei? The Cold War is supposed to be over.”
Rodriguez was at the Kaliningrad airport when the call came through from Borz Zakaev.
“We may have something. Last night, at a village near Ayvazovskaya, a kid matching Stefan Baklanov’s description stole some clothes. A militiaman chased him, then lost him in the woods.”
Rodriguez shoved a stick of gum in his mouth and watched as a baldheaded Dane pushed open the battered doors from the Customs and Immigration hall. “Where is this Ayvazovskaya?”
“Southeast of Kaliningrad.”
“Could be him.” Rodriguez glanced at his watch. The passengers on the Aeroflot flight from Berlin would be coming out at any moment. He said, “We should be done here soon. Let me know when you have something positive. Once we get the little shit, all we need is the U-boat’s big boom, and we’re outta here.”
Borz gave one of his deep laughs. “You don’t like Kaliningrad?”
“I don’t like Russia.”
“Neither do I,” said Borz, and hung up.
18
Jax let his gaze travel from Andrei Gorchakove to October Guinness’s white, strained features, and thought, Sonofabitch.
When it came to delicate international situations, Jax didn’t like dealing with unknowns, and at the moment he was facing a shitload of them. Not just, What did the Russians know? But, How much had they managed to wheedle out of October? She wasn’t a field operative, and she’d never been trained to handle interrogations, and Washington should never, ever have sent her on an assignment like this.
“You took your time getting here, Jax,” said Andrei, pushing away from the wall. “We were expecting you last night.”
“Blame Aeroflot.”
Andrei made a sound deep in his chest that might have been a laugh. Dismissing the two soldiers with a nod and a snap of his fingers, he led them to a more comfortable room with a desk and a couple of upholstered chairs set before a window overlooking the bleak runway.
“Please, have a seat.” He glanced at his watch, said, “Excuse me a moment,” and left the room.
Jax watched October sink down on the edge of one of the upholstered chairs. From the looks of things, she was sweating and shivering at the same time-never a good sign. He frowned. “You all right?”
She glanced up at him, a lock of loose hair falling across her face. “Aside from being scared shitless, I’m great.”
He gave her a crooked smile. She might be untrained and way too far into woo-woo for his taste, but she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t weak.
She jerked her head toward the door and lowered her voice. “Who is that guy?”
Jax went to lean against the window overlooking the tarmac, his arms crossed at his chest. “You do realize this room is bugged-and probably set up with a video camera, too?”
She blinked, and he knew from the expression on her face that no, that hadn’t occurred to her. God help him.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “But I think they already know who he is. And you know who he is. So the only person who doesn’t know who he is, is me.”
Jax said, “How much do you know about the KGB?”
“I thought it didn’t exist anymore.”
“Not technically. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB basically split into two organizations. There’s the FSB, or Federal Security Service, which is like a combination of our FBI, Secret Service, Customs Agency, and DEA, all rolled into one. And then there’s the SVR, or Foreign Intelligence Service. They’re the Russian equivalent of the CIA.”
“Let me guess; this guy Andrei is with the SVR?”
“You got it.”
“So how do you know him?”
“The first time we met, we were in the jungles near Mandalay and I was right out of the Farm.” Jax glanced out the window at the heavy gray clouds pressing down on the runway and surrounding fields. A few drops of rain had begun to fall, beading on the glass to run down in long rivulets. “Andrei saved my skin.”
“So you owe him.”
“At the moment, we’re even. I saved his ass last year in Niger.”
“So does that make you friends or something?”
“Hardly. Don’t let him fool you. Andrei Gorchakove is a dangerous sonofabitch. He’s fiercely loyal to Russia, and he can be utterly ruthless when he needs to be.”
“I’d figured that part out myself,” she said dryly.
“That’s reassuring. Now I need you to tell me exactly what you told them-and nothing more,” he warned her.
She sat for a moment, as if running the last hour or so through in her head. “They already knew I was a linguist with the Navy. They even knew about my psychological discharge.” Her forehead crinkled. “How could they know any of that stuff?”
“You think we’re the only ones with spies? Their intelligence network is a hell of a lot more effective than it used to be. Back in the days of Communism, the Soviets were so insular the only spies they could run in the West were assigned to their embassies or with Aeroflot, which made them really, really easy to watch. Now the West is overrun with millions of expat Russians. And a big chunk of them report to the SVB.”
“He even knew about my father.”
Jax frowned. “Anything else?”
“No.”
It was time, Jax decided, to end Andrei’s little listening game. He said, “How’s your cat?”
The question obviously disconcerted her. Her face went almost comically blank. “My cat?”
“Your cat. What’s his name?”
“You mean, Beauregard?”
“That’s it. Beauregard.” Jax could practically hear Andrei sighing with frustration at the other end of the mike feed. A minute later, the door opened and the SVB man walked back into the room.
“Sorry about that,” he said in his precise English, shaking out a packet of British cigarettes. He held them out to October. “You smoke?”
“No, thank you,” she said with painful politeness.
The Russian went to perch on the edge of the desk, his attention all for the task of lighting his cigarette. It was a moment before he spoke. “You asked what’s going on, Jax.” He exhaled a stream of blue smoke. “I’ll tell you something: I’d like to know what’s going on.”
He pointed the tip of his cigarette at them. “A couple of days ago, the Kaliningrad militia reported a curious incident at a shipyard near the entrance to the Vistula Lagoon. When the manager stopped by to check on a shipment Saturday morning, he found his night watchman with a slit throat and a salvage ship called the Yalena floating in the cove. Everyone on board was dead.”
“A shipyard?” said Jax incredulously. He looked at October to find her sitting forward, her lips parted. He didn’t want to believe she had “seen” U-114 simply by reaching out with her mind, but the evidence was starting to stack up. “Did you say a shipyard? And a salvage ship?”
Andrei flicked the ash from his cigarette and frowned. “That’s what I said, Jax. A shipyard, a salvage ship, and thirteen dead men-fourteen, counting the night watchman. That’s an unusually high body count, even for Russia. And then I hear that Jason Aldrich has booked a flight to Kaliningrad.” He paused to look at Jax. “Don’t you ever change your cover identity?”
“There wasn’t a lot of time.”
“Evidently.” Andrei inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowing against the smoke. “I ask myself, what has happened, is happening, or is about to happen in Kaliningrad Oblast that’s unusual? I think about that incident near the Vistula Lagoon, and I find my curiosity piqued.”